After the fall of Saigon in 1975, the communist regime of North Vietnam was reunited with millions of South Vietnamese they didn't trust and who vastly outnumbered them. Two of them were Dzung Nguyen and his father, who were sent off to re-education camps. That left Dzung's much younger brother Thomas, a high school student, as the head of the family. The brothers, both the incarcerated Dzung and the relatively "free" Thomas, resisted their new overlords as much as they could without drawing too much attention to themselves. After Dzung was released five and half years later, he and Thomas arranged to escape Vietnam on a fishing boat, along with 24 other people. Dzung was to be the navigator and Thomas the mechanic. The responsibility of the journey weighed heavily on the brothers' minds.
They aimed toward Natuna, an Indonesian island that promised refuge for fleeing Vietnamese. But their rusty water tank developed a leak and all the fresh water was gone before they found out. The boat was still four days away from Natuna. Would they all be able to survive that long? There were a few children aboard. Could they even find the island? Read their story, or listen to the audio version, at Truly Adventurous.
If you search for images of barrel jumping, you'll find a lot of equestrian, rodeo, and skateboard photos. But this sport started out as an ice-skating event- a very dangerous event in which skaters raced up to 50 miles per hour in order to long-jump over beer barrels. If you made it over all the barrels, you would inevitably crash into the end of the rink or pond. At one point, organizers wanted to add more ice for the landing to avoid those high-speed and often injurious crashes, but the skaters themselves objected, because they wanted every inch of ice they could get to build up speed for their jump.
Barrel jumping is believed to have originated in the Netherlands in the 19th century, but the sport really blew up in the 1930s when Grossinger’s Catskill Resort Hotel launched competitive barrel jumping. They eventually began hosting the annual North American Invitational Barrel Jumping tournament, which drew the attention of ABC’s Wide World of Sports broadcast. Read about the heyday of the exhilarating and dangerous sport of barrel jumping at Messy Nessy Chic. Yes, there are videos along with the story and images.
YouTube chef Adam Ragusea (previously at Neatorama) breaks down the basics of making homemade chili. It's really quite simple. About 50 years ago, a friend made some really good chili and I got her recipe. Over time, I have changed and refined it to my own liking. I've made vegan chili a few times, but now I use some meat, plus more beans by volume. I've never added chocolate, and any time I think about doing it, I rarely have chocolate in the house. The point is, homemade chili is a wonderful food that you can improve upon throughout your life. Ragusea imparts his chili philosophy that will lead you to your own perfect recipe, and many evenings of good meals. Add cheese and/or sour cream (if you like) when serving, plus corn chips or crackers. Don't be put off by this video's apparent length. Only 4:40 is devoted to chili; the rest is an ad. -via Digg
One of my Myth students calculated the minimum number of times Odysseus cheated on Penelope: 6,573
— Dr. Jeremy Swist 🤘🏛️🐈 (@MetalClassicist) November 17, 2022
In Homer's Illiad and Odyssey, Odysseus, King of Ithaca, spent 20 years away from home while on many adventures. His loving wife, Penelope, was suspected of infidelity but never gave in to her hundred suitors.
Let us set aside the revolting rumors about her alleged romp with Apollo that produced Pan. That is not canonical.
What is canonical, according to Homer, is that Odysseus was relentlessly pursuing other women to almost Wilt Chamberlain levels of promiscuity.
But precisely how many times did Odysseus cheat on Penelope during his two decades away from home? A student of classicist Dr. Jeremy Swist at Brandeis University crunched the numbers. His calculations concluded at 6,573.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is the #1 movie in America, but this isn't about the Marvel superhero. It's also not about the political party formed in the 1960s. Smithsonian took the opportunity of the movie's opening to tell us some fun facts about the big black cats.
When I was young, just the word "panther" meant a black big cat. Bagheera from The Jungle Book was the most well-known panther. Panthera is a genus that includes lions, tigers, jaguars, and leopards- what we call "big cats." Strangely, mountain lions, which are called panthers in Florida, are also big cats but do not belong to the Panthera genus. The cats we now refer to as black panthers are actually leopards or jaguars that are black. These melanistic cats are the result of recessive genes in leopards and dominant genes in jaguars. Smithsonian tells us all about black panthers, and compares their predatory skills with those of the Marvel superhero in a list of fun facts (plus videos) about the real black panthers.
Compared to Christmas and Halloween, there are few movies specifically about Thanksgiving. For a long time, Alice's Restaurant was the only one, unless you count Miracle on 34th Street, which starts on Thanksgiving but is really about Christmas. Then in 1987, Steve Martin and John Candy starred in the John Hughes comedy Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. It was a hit that became a seasonal tradition. But if the original plans were followed, it would have been a different movie.
The rough cut of the film was over three hours long. That rarely flies for a movie without a built-in fandom. The finished movie is only 93 minutes long. What was cut? We can imagine that Hughes looked at all the funny bits between Martin and Candy and ranked them to eliminate the lesser scenes. Personally, I would have watched the back-and-forth between those two for three hours. But Hughes also cut an entire subplot involving Martin's character's wife Susan. Laila Robins, who played the part of Susan, was rather surprised to see most of her scenes cut in the final version. She talked to Cracked about what was cut from Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Read it and you'll see the story with a new understanding when you watch it this Thanksgiving.
We already know that when the big migration of modern humans (homo sapiens) flowed out of Africa into Europe about 80,000 years ago, they interbred with Neanderthals. That's why most people on earth now have some vestiges of Neanderthal DNA, although Neanderthals as a species died out. But more recent research shows the gene pool flowed the other way as well, and much earlier than we thought. Sequencing the genes of Neanderthals that died very long ago isn't easy, but it has yielded evidence that homo sapiens and Neanderthals interbred long, long before the big migration from Africa that saw homo sapiens take over the world. The key to this discovery is the Y chromosome, which had been very hard to find in Neanderthal remains. But when scientists finally found it, the results are astonishing. PBS Eons explains what's been discovered, and how these new findings change the history of humanity.
Tran Thi Bich Ngoc is a tattoo artist in Hanoi who specializes in tattooing designs over scars. Her clients come from all over, with scars from injuries, surgery, burns, chemical exposure, stretch marks, mastectomies, cesarian sections, birthmarks, and an occasional bad tattoo. With so much judgement directed at their appearance, women in particular are psychologically affected by scars and skin blemishes that can't be fixed. But they can be minimized and rendered beautiful with delicate flowers and birds inked on top.
That can do a lot for a woman's confidence! Many of the floral patterns she inks have a personal meaning for the wearer besides a coverup. For all, it means that part of their body is worth showing off again. See a roundup of 50 of Tran Thi Bich Ngoc's best scar coverups in a ranked list at Bored Panda.
(Images credit: Tran Thi Bich Ngoc)
Volkswagen has unveiled a new office chair that has everything. Not only is it ergonomically designed, it is powered. This chair can travel up to 12 miles (20 km) an hour, and it has headlights, collision-avoidance sensors, a backup camera, heated seat, and a hitch on the back for towing. Cool! But what is Volkswagen doing making office chairs?
When first viewing the video, I thought this was a stunt to entice remote workers back into the office. But no one with a chair like this is going to get any work done! The "rider" will just be tootling around the office building (it has a horn), playing with the onboard screen, and probably towing a taco cart (which could lead to this). Yeah, it's a stunt, but it's for advertising the features of new Volkswagen automobiles. They apparently made just a few so that people can try them out. In Europe. -via Boing Boing
The seventh edition of The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary will be available later this month. Last updated in 2018, it contains around 500 new words that have come into common usage. All the new words are in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, which is updated constantly. You may or may not be familiar with them. Here's a few interesting examples.
adulting
deadname
dox
dumpster (formerly a brand name)
eggcorn
embiggen
fauxhawk
hygge
subtweet
unfollow
unsub
yeehaw (they admit this is not new)
zonkey
zoomer
If you play Scrabble, you've probably already tried to use these words, and you could get away with it if no one in the room had an official Scrabble Dictionary. Until you get your new copy, you can refer any protesters to this post. A lot of words have been deleted from the new edition, mainly racial and ethnic slurs and otherwise offensive words. As always, the Scrabble tournament edition is somewhat different. See more of the new words in an AP article. -via Metafilter
I invented the Squatty Slides, The first platform sandals with a retractable base that helps put your legs in the optimal position for doing your business. pic.twitter.com/7Aa1QerPLi
— Unnecessary Inventions (@mattyxb) November 14, 2022
The premise behind the squatty potty is that the optimal position for defecation is with the knees raised. Just sitting on the conventional toilet with one’s thighs parallel to the ground is not enough, so a stool tilts them backward.
But people will look at you strangely if you carry around a potty stool just in case you need to relieve yourself while out of the home. That’s why Matty Benedetto of Unnecessary Inventions developed Squatty Slides. These slip-on shoes have telescoping bases that elevate the legs so that you’re already ready to deliver the goods even while away from your home squatty potty.
Passports can be weird. Some of them are proof of citizenship, while others are just proof of residency. They are mainly a well-vetted proof of identification, issued by national governments. Except when they are issued by groups that aren't national governments. The legality of these non-national passports varies, and so do their value. Not all of them are accepted for crossing borders, at least not by all countries. In a few cases, whether a border agent will accept one of these non-governmental passports depends on how the agent feels that day. Then there are some such passports that are not only very valid, but also confer extra benefits, like those issued by the United Nations and Interpol. The video length is 4:50; the rest is an ad. -via Digg
Tino Cardasis recorded a lecture when he was in college. His economics professor was making a point using the beef industry as an example. Cardasis later edited the video to include only the times he said "beef." That was 125 times, which isn't all that often in a 90-minute lecture, but it hits differently if that's all you hear. The video has been around for a few years, but the first time I saw it was in Annie? Rauwerda?'s viral Tweet from a few days ago. She was in the same class, and was surprised to see Cardasis' edit a few weeks after the lecture. Cardasis says that yes, the professor has seen it.
He told me he saw it when it first blew up. When I graduated he said he shows it every year
— Tino Cardasis (@CardasisTino) November 14, 2022
The video is an example of semantic satiation, in which the listener hears the same word too many times and it loses all meaning, and even starts to sound weird. It's also an example of how creative people can make something special out of nothing. -via Metafilter
This post contains spoilers for a 34-year-old film.
It's become a traditional sign of the approaching holidays: online arguments about whether the film Die Hard is a Christmas movie. As if anyone is arguing otherwise. There is no better proof than the popularity of the Die Hard Advent Calendar. This is a laser-cut 11.5-inch model of Nakatomi Tower made of birch wood. It illustrates Hans Gruber (portrayed by Alan Rickman) falling to his death one floor at a time as you advance him day-by-day. Gruber's body has a magnet attached to a metal strip on the tower.
Three years ago, redditor lammage01 constructed a whimsical Advent calendar depicting that memorable scene at the climax of Die Hard. The villain advanced down a floor each day when you pull a tab.
Firefighter and woodworker Brandt Builds, a big Die Hard fan, was intrigued by the concept. He went to work refining it, developed the magnet idea, and designed his own Nakatomi Tower. He launched the product last year at his Etsy shop, LeatherheadLaserWork. Now he sells the Advent calendar (in plain and color versions) along with Christmas tree ornaments of Gruber, John McClane, and Nakatomi Tower. The Advent calendar went viral in October, and other vendors have suddenly copied the design. You can find it cheaper, but Brunt's hand-made calendars are the original. You can even get it personalized. Advent begins on November 27, so get your orders in!
The United Nations has dubbed tomorrow "The Day of Eight Billion." On November 15, 2022, the world population will cross eight billion people. The UN is not looking at this milestone as a catastrophe- the reason why the population is that high is that people are living longer on average, and fewer children are dying. This interactive video graphic illustrates the change in death rates. Russia is a notable outlier.
The number of people living in extreme poverty has also fallen, from from 44% in 1974 to 10%. Read more statistics about the current world population. But there are still challenges, as the world is currently reeling from pandemic, war, and climate change.
We marked the population reaching seven billion only eleven years ago. However, the rate of growth has actually slowed down from previous decades. At this rate we can expect to reach nine billion in 2037, fifteen years from now. -via Metafilter
